Photos From Kodak’s Picture Contests in the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s

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Trent
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An Amateur Snapshot of Kodak’s Early Days

It was, they said, “the largest prize contest in photographic history.” The Rush Rhees Library in Rochester, N.Y., houses a collection of photographs from the first-ever picture contest sponsored by the Eastman Kodak Company.

via Lens Blog: http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/an-amateur-snapshot-of-kodaks-early-days/?pagewanted=all

Kodak advertised aggressively for its 1929 picture contest, spending hundreds of thousands to encourage “fortunate amateurs” to take part. Nancy Martin, a University of Rochester archivist and Rochester Collections librarian, says she believes the first contest was the company’s effort to “start cameras working and keep them working.”